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STU PITT MORAN 2020

Monday, March 3, 2014

A Colorado Springs mom is catching heat from social services for treating her son's cancer with cannabis instead of chemotherapy.

The thing is, she says, it seems to be working.

Sierra Riddle learned a year ago that her son Landon, 3, had an aggressive form of leukemia. Doctors in their hometown of Salt Lake City began the standard treatment of radiation and chemotherapy, which took a heavy toll on his little body.

Landon became violently ill, vomiting multiple times a day, and suffered nerve damage in his legs, Riddle told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta in July. At one point, the boy went 25 days without eating.

"Around the clock, he's usually on liquid morphine, Ativan, Promethexane. And it just really didn't seem to be helping," Riddle said.

Though she didn't know much about medical marijuana, Riddle decided to try it because "we didn't have anything else to lose." She and Landon moved to Colorado, where medical marijuana is legal, in order to obtain the drug.

In January Landon began taking liquid forms of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol), two compounds found in cannabis. Miraculously, his cancer began to retreat.

"As soon as we started taking the oil, his platelets have been a regular healthy person's level and they can't understand why," Riddle told CNN.